Reading Room TWILIGHT ZONE "Mars: Dead or Alive"

50 years ago, when I saw this George Wilson cover on the comics rack of my local candy store...

...I just had to read it!

(BTW, the astronaut is Steve (Doc Savage) Holland!)

Written by Dick Wood and illustrated by Nevio Zaccara, the cover-feature (though not lead story) from Gold Key's Twilight Zone #17 (1966) offered a somewhat-plausable explanation (in those pre-Mars Rover days) as to why we hadn't seen signs of life on Mars.
Wood and Zaccara also collaborated on the never-reprinted Explorers in the Unknown strip that ran in Gold Key's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea comic.

Jack Davis (1924-2016)

In tribute to the late, great, Jack Davis...

Here's a never-reprinted pic of him (sitting in the tree) from Playboy Press' Trump #1 (1957)

And here's a never-reprinted Davis pencil and ink feature: " 'You Know Who' Gets Killed" from Humbug Publications' Humbug #1 (1957)!

Rest in Peace, Jack.

Reading Room AMAZING ADVENTURES OF BUSTER CRABBE "I Cover Mars"

He was Flash Gordon!

He was Buck Rogers!

He was Thun'da!

He was Tarzan!

And, he was the star of his own comic book series...twice!

From the 1940s to the 60s, numerous celebrities had their own comics which took the approach that anything they did on movie/tv/radio, they could do in "real life"!

While comics based on Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, et al, just did Western tales, the four-color stories of performers like John Wayne and Buster Crabbe covered as many genres as the actors themselves!

In fact, the issue this short appeared in (Lev Gleason's Amazing Adventures of Buster Crabbe #1 from 1953) had three tales, this space opera, a jungle adventure, and a Western!

This was Buster's second series.

You can read another tale from this run HERE)

The first, from Eastern Color, ran a dozen issues over two years and featured art by, among others, Frank Frazetta, Al Williamson, George Evans, Bob Powell, and Roy Krenkel, among others.

(You can see several of those tales HERE)

This tale was illustrated by Ed Martinott, who worked exclusively for Lev Gleason and Good Comics in the early 1950s before switching to advertising.

Pretty good work, including accurate likenesses of Crabbe in most panels.

Reading Room LEFTY FLYNN "and the Diamond Death"

Take me OUT at the ball game...

Who knew baseball could be such a violent sport?

No, you won't!

This never-reprinted story from Doc Savage Comics V1N4 (1941) was Lefty's first, last, and only appearance anywhere!

Both the writer and artist of this one-shot strip are unknown.

You may ask why I decided to post this particular tale.

My two "home towns", Chicago and New York City are holding their annual intra-city "Crosstown Classics" over the next two weeks.

Chicago's White Sox and Cubs slug it out this week and NY's Mets and Yankees duel next week.

They're the only two cities left with both National League and American League teams, but until the 1950s, it was a far more common occurrence than present-day fans realize!

Besides Chi-Town and Gotham, the following cities had both AL and NL teams...

Boston had the Braves (NL) and Red Sox (AL). Braves moved to Milwaukee, then Atlanta.

St. Louis had the Browns (AL) and Cardinals (NL). Browns moved to Baltimore and became the Orioles!

Philadelphia had the Athletics (AL) and Phillies (NL). Athletics moved to Kansas City, then ended up in Oakland!

For a while, NY had three teams, The Giants (NL), Yankees (AL) and the Brooklyn Dodgers (NL) who were formed before Brooklyn merged with Manhattan and the Bronx (which were considered "New York City") along with Queens and Staten Island.

The Giants and Dodgers moved at the same time to California (San Francisco and Los Angeles, respectively), and for several years there was no NL team in New York.

Then both the AL and NL expanded, adding two new teams in each league.

The NL got the Mets in NY and Astros in Houston.

The AL briefly put the Angels in LA, and Washington got a new Senators team. The Angels stayed in the general area, but adopted the name "California Angels", and evntually, "Angels of Aniheim".

But, wait! Didn't Washington already have a Senators team? They did, but that team moved to Minnesota and became the Twins!

And the second Senators team moved to Texas to become the Rangers!

I'm not even going to go into the second expansion that occured only seven years later and created the divisions within the leagues that now extend baseball season well into November!

Hope I made the history lecture fairly painless...

Reading Room CAPTAIN JOHNER AND THE ALIENS "Time-Distorters"

Commander Zartz and the Aliens have helped Johner and General Curso capture non-human impostors...

...but the extraterrestrials can't prove it!

So, not so much other aliens, but humans with some sort of time technology!

From the future?

From the past?

The last caption promises an explanation...

Plus, more cool, unique color-hold graphics from creator/writer/illustrator Russ Manning in this tale from Gold Key's Magnus, Robot Fighter #12 (1965)!

Be here next Monday as the mystery deepens...